by Dreamtwister » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 20:34:22
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'I') have to agree with you on this account but this really requires firing large nukes in the space. Poor ISS...
You have below an interesting link about EMP and protection against it.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/libra ... 7010_1.htmThat is a great link. I've only skimmed it so far, but these in particular attracted my attention:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')esterday we invited the intelligence community to provide us with their most up-to-date material on EMP threats. We received documents that were 10 years old, interestingly enough, written at that time by a member of our staff, who now is an expert with us, Peter Pry, who at that time was with the agency and the expert on EMP.
We understand that no NIE has been issued on EMP since the 1980's, and this is 1997. We also understand that some of our EMP testing sets have been dismantled or are in disrepair.
This tells me that while I'm sure research has continued, and the bulk of military hardware is doubtless properly shielded by now, virtually nothing has happened in the last decade to harden the civilian infrastructure against EMP attack.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Soviets took the V–2 engineering crew to the Soviet Union, and they started cranking out in the early 1950's several generations of rockets which are now known to the world as Scuds. Those rockets have been sold very extensively throughout the Third World to the point that even, if you will, a rinky-dink power like North Korea is capable of indigenously producing rockets which are imminently satisfactory for launching not only conventional payloads but nuclear trajectories that go into space.
The Scud rockets used by the Iraqis very effectively, as terror weapons in Operation Desert Storm, flew to altitudes of 150 kilometers, which is imminently satisfactory for the type of regional EMP laydowns I have been referring to.
The Iraqis succeeded in launching not only 80 rockets—79 rockets that landed on or near targets, but they succeeded in launching them at extremely high rates with a very high rate of success. Over 90 percent of all the launches they attempted were successful.
They succeeded, in one particularly striking set of launches, in launching seven of them nearly simultaneously within a time window of 10 minutes. Each of these rockets flew into space. They achieved apogee altitudes of about 150 kilometers. One of these rockets could have carried a nuclear explosive of a kiloton class yield into space and, in particular, detonated it over our forces.
So how many countries out there can build scuds? There's got to be at least a couple dozen by now, and some of them *cough North Korea* are nuclear already.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')e didn't have any confirmed kills of Scud-launching capability during Operation Desert Storm, in spite of having flown 8,000 sorties that were specific against Scud launchers.
The whole of human history is a refutation by experiment of the concept of "moral world order". - Friedrich Nietzsche
by PenultimateManStanding » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 20:40:05
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '
')Even if that were true, all of civilization would still end overnight and there's not much TPTB could do about it.
I don't think civilization would end overnight just because some of the electronics broke down. What proportion of the electronics would an EMP weapon break?
The electrical grid goes down, hundreds of thousands of transformers need to be rebuilt and replaced across the entire country, requiring years of work that becomes impossible without <<< electricity >>> .
Haven't had time to continue with
http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdfEMP DOOM
This is fascinating. Thanks for posting it. Jack, I'm sure you would also get into this doomer novel. I thought after the first couple of paragraphs that the author was amateur, but it's really well thought out. I'm a couple hundred pages into it now and have to press-on, a "page-turner" as they say in the dust-jacket blurb biz.
by jupiters_release » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 21:26:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '
')Even if that were true, all of civilization would still end overnight and there's not much TPTB could do about it.
I don't think civilization would end overnight just because some of the electronics broke down. What proportion of the electronics would an EMP weapon break?
The electrical grid goes down, hundreds of thousands of transformers need to be rebuilt and replaced across the entire country, requiring years of work that becomes impossible without <<< electricity >>> .
Haven't had time to continue with
http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Current.pdfEMP DOOM
This is fascinating. Thanks for posting it. Jack, I'm sure you would also get into this doomer novel. I thought after the first couple of paragraphs that the author was amateur, but it's really well thought out. I'm a couple hundred pages into it now and have to press-on, a "page-turner" as they say in the dust-jacket blurb biz.
by jupiters_release » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 21:30:16
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'A')ny electron tube based old fashion equipment (including a radio belonging to my grandpa) would survive.
True. But how many of them are still out there and working? I don't think I've seen one in ~20 years.
My integrated HH Scott 299A stereo tube amp is now 47 years old and outclasses almost anything you can buy today, but it can't run without electricity though.
by jupiters_release » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 21:32:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eric_b', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jupiters_release', '
')
I don't question the quality of military gear, but this EMP thing sounds pervasive short of cost prohibitive vacuum environments, course I don't know anything about electrical engineering just the impression I got reading about photons and such crossing the entire continent within a millisecond.
Ah, electromagnetic radiation has no trouble propagating through a vacuum. Most rad hardened stuff is encased in heavy metal shielding (faraday cage). This is the most reliable, but there are other ways to go about it.
No vacuum required
Yeah I have no clue on this at all, good to learn about it here because its one topic I've rarely seen discussed.
by eric_b » Fri 15 Dec 2006, 21:36:37
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dreamtwister', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'N')uclear explosions will not deliver sufficient EMP to destroy power lines or transformers, unless the bomb exploded so nearly, that they would be done "for other reasons" anyway.
That depends on the height and yield of the detonation. Starfish Prime (1.4Mt) back in 1962 was detonated at a height of ~400 km over Johnson Island, and caused blackouts as far away as Hawaii, 1500km away. It blew out street lights, fused wires and disabled 3 low-orbit satellites. Starfish Prime wasn't even designed to be an EMP weapon.
Exactly. The amount and severity of the EMP depends on many factors, most important being the size of the bomb ( & type) and the altitude it's detonated at.
If the desire is to completely paralyze a country without rendering it totally radioactive a large (many megatonne, not a wimpy kilotonne yield weapon) weapon detonated at very hight altitude would produce a large and devasting amount of EMP, which would defeat a lot of shielded electronics.
Undertand too the military has apparently developed EMP weapons which could be used to knockout electronics over a smaller area. Too useful a phenomenon not to be weaponized.
